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2016 CLIMATE Award Winners

A massive congratulations to high school students Jack Nyhof and Ruby Williams, who recently took out the Victorian CLIMATE Award. On the 18th of March 2016 they received their awards at the inaugural Victorian CLIMATE awards ceremony. The awards are a partnership between the Victorian Local Government Association and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. The awards recognise high school students and local governments that

Collaborate

Lead

Innovate

Mitigate

Advocate

Tranform

Empower

to combat global warming and create a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable future. Check out their inspiring stories below !

Jack Nyhof

Jack is a Year 9 student at Geelong High School. He has been involved in local environmental groups such as Ocean Grove Coast Care Group, the Geelong Youth Action Environment Group and he undertook training with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. He is an active member of the Geelong High School student Green Team.

When Geelong High School’s Green Team and the Sustainability Coordinator was planning the school’s involvement in Enviroweek during 2015, Jack suggested getting the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) involved as they have volunteers who plan and deliver presentations about climate change.

His motivation was to increase student understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change and to encourage students to find ways to adjust their behaviour to reduce their impact on the environment. While there are other student members of the Green Team at GHS, Jack’s approach has been unique as he has been the most vocal. He is also the student who promotes action about the environment most in the general community, through his work with ‘Earth, People, Animals’, the AYCC, The Sustainable Hour and the Act of Climate Festival.

Ruby Williams

Ruby began her passion for environmentalism in New Zealand as a primary school student where she worked to establish a worm farm, vegetable garden and helped to design a club mascot “Hector the Protector” based on the Hector’s Dolphin, an endangered native New Zealand dolphin.

As a student at Melbourne Girls’ College (MGC), she continued to work with environmental mascots (such as Bolo Makemba, the school Congolese exchange student/Gorilla who was caught stealing recycled mobile phones to draw awareness of the problems associated with coltan ore extraction in her “hometown”). She drives her peers to be more environmentally aware citizens who have the power to make a difference. She is a dedicated member of the student environment team who contributed as Vice and then Environment Captain in her final two years of schooling. Whilst Ruby was Environment Captain, MGC won the Zayed Future Energy Prize for innovation in renewable energy. Ruby was one of two students invited to represent the prize in New York at the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Summit. Ruby is committed to sustainability education.

Also a big congratulation’s to Melton City Council who won the council category for their Lead program that empowered community members to switch on to environmental action.